


Nothing But Murder All Day

by FloriaTosca



Series: Self-Indulgent Post AoU Gen 'verse [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Catboys & Catgirls, Clones, Gen, Kid Fic, Mad Science, Mental Health Issues, female deadpool, past offscreen child abuse, tykebombs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-10-23 03:58:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10711719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FloriaTosca/pseuds/FloriaTosca
Summary: What has science done?  What *hasn't* science done?!  In this case, however, science attempted to fuse HYDRA's deadliest assassin with one of nature's most adorable perfect predators.  Sometimes a family is two nonagenarian super soldiers, a spy, and four bioengineered cat-hybrid daughters.





	1. Chapter 1

I was back in the US again. Corporate assassination gig this time, featuring the kinds of _American Psycho_ -style rich assholes I didn’t know even existed outside of Reagan-era New York. Maybe I should have felt bad for killing a member of an endangered species, but my target had been a piece of work even apart from the terrible business ethics and the HYDRA connections. 

“You dumb, stubborn, _incredibly creepy_ sonofabitch,” I said to his dead body after I got the scene of his “accidental demise” arranged to my liking. “You should’ve known better. Did you think your associates were too _law-abiding_ and _decent_ to consider cutting the knot after you tried to blackmail them, or did you just think you were untouchable? Hell, they’re lucky they got ahold of me before the Punisher found out about you. He usually sticks to the Northeast, but I bet he’d make an exception for your creepy ass.” I took a picture of the body in case my employers wanted photographic evidence and checked the timer on my phone. Ten more minutes before the security electronics started to come back on. I went upstairs and swept my target’s bedroom and study for incriminating material. I couldn’t find any hard copies, and my EMP gadget had knocked out his computer so I couldn’t check _that_. I personally wasn’t too fussed about letting the guy be humiliated after death for shit he actually _did_ , but my employers had put a lot of emphasis on discretion and avoiding scandal.

[ _What the hell is this, Victorian high society?_ ]

Stealing the computer’s hard drive took an uncomfortable amount of time, especially since, for maximum discretion, I had to put the computer back together again. “Dammit, guys, if your check bounces after all this, I will murder you all in your beds and feed your children chocolate frosted sugar bombs at the funeral.” The lights began to hum as I tightened the last screw. I grabbed my stuff, vaulted out the window like Benton Fraser, and caught myself on the branches of a nearby tree. Which was one of those goddamn monkey puzzles. “Ow, fuck! Bad spiky tree! Who the hell designed you anyway, Rob Liefeld?”

[ _The tree can’t be a Liefeld creation. It has roots. And no pouches._ ]

“Hey, don’t talk shit about pouches! Have you tried putting pockets into something this tight?” Climbing through that Cenobite’s jungle gym was like fighting Squirrel Girl - minus the obnoxious good cheer and cuteness - but at least there was a large branch that ended right over the hedge. I dropped down, got stabbed by a bunch of thorns and twigs - at this rate I was taking a lot more damage from inanimate plants than I was from either the guy I was sent to kill or his home security system - and crawled through the hedge like it was the jungles of ‘Nam until I got to the blind spot where I’d stashed the rest of my gear. I changed into my civvies - a strange woman in a hoodie carrying an ominously clunking messenger bag walking around a posh neighborhood at 0300 being slightly less suspicious than a strange woman in ladybug ninja gear carrying a small arsenal - and texted my employer. _Mission accomplished_.

_Good. Any witnesses?_

_Nothing but the dust bunnies._ I noticed something moving behind me reflected on the screen of my phone, knocked it down with my bag of weapons, and then shot it _. And the drone I just killed._

I walked off briskly - running looks suspicious and it’s not easy to sprint when you’re carrying this much stuff, anyway - and didn’t get any more messages until I’d reached my car.

_A drone? What a surprise! I cannot imagine how that got there_.

Stop trying to be cute, faceless writing on a burner phone. It doesn’t suit you. _The money?_

_Will be transferred when we have proof of the target’s death._

I sent the picture. _Stop trying to stall._

No reply. In the quiet of the night, I heard a car approach, but I didn’t see any headlights. “Oh, fuck me blue with an overpriced silicone dragon dick.” I could not believe this was a coincidence. I grabbed Merida - my big fuck-off sniper rifle - and climbed up on the roof of my car. When the mystery car - which was the kind of conspicuously inconspicuous black SUV I associate with Sinister Dealings - drove past, I sat there with Merida on my lap and gave the driver a friendly wave. The SUV drove past me, turned around in somebody’s driveway, and drove off for parts unknown. A few minutes later, I got an alert from the bank app on my phone telling me that my account had received the money. “Okay, you got off this time. But if we ever meet in real life I am feeding your kids _all_ the refined sugar. With a side of high-fructose corn syrup. And _extra gluten_.”

It was still over three hours til sunrise, but my brain was way too keyed up to go to straight to bed, and I did have unfinished business in the greater Seattle area. I got a plate of chimichangas at a 24-hour Mexican restaurant and considered my options. When my meal was finished and my mind made up, I headed for a warehouse on the Federal Way waterfront.

When I got to the warehouse, all the electronic security was on, but I didn’t see a single human guard apart from the usual waterfront night watchmen, who were easy enough to avoid. This made things easier in some ways, but also meant that I couldn’t use the old “mug a guard for their uniform and key card” trick. I had to Solid Snake it.

I’m not an easy person to scare, but there is something incredibly creepifying about sneaking through a dimly lit, silent, supposed-to-be-empty-but-you-can’t-be-sure warehouse at four in the morning while your brain supplies the appropriate ominous soundtrack. Thanks, brain.

[ _You’re welcome._ ]

Once I got out of the warehouse proper and into the offices, the lighting situation had improved, but it wasn’t any less eerie. The place looked _abandoned_ , like everyone had been abducted by aliens or caught up in a very localized Rapture in the middle of a normal work night. There was still a half-finished solitaire game open on one of the computers. And the air smelled faintly of AXE, rotting radishes, and cat piss.

As I worked my way toward where the lab facilities usually are in places like this, the weird smell in the air got stronger. Then I saw the blood. I’m no CSI tech, but you see a lot of bleeding in my line of work. I’d say this was less than a pint, fairly fresh - old enough to dry, but still bright red - and caused by multiple shallow wounds with a small slashing weapon. 

Laboratory complexes of this sort tend to be fucking labyrinths - probably to keep experiments IN and interlopers like me OUT, although I don’t think you can completely write off “mad scientists love unnecessary complication” as a reason, either. “Shit, who designed this place, an intelligent chambered nautilus? A homesick minotaur? M.C. Escher? The _House of Leaves_ architect?” After a lot of looping through identical-looking empty offices and supply rooms, some of which had bloodstains like the first one I’d found, I found a room that looked more like a doctor’s office, with an examination table and lab equipment. And the body of a middle aged man in a lab coat lying on the floor with his throat ripped out and a small handgun lying on the floor beside him.

Another small blade, judging by the injuries to what was left of his neck. Either someone here was scary good with an Exacto knife or we were dealing with claws. I saw bloody footprints leading away from the body - they belonged to a barefoot person the size of a small human adult, who was in the habit of walking on the balls of their feet. The killer hadn’t taken the gun. Interesting.

I followed the footprints until the blood wore off and they become too faint to follow. This lead me to another damn interminable hallway, but this time, one of the doors was already open. I crept up to the open door. I noticed the room reeked of AXE and cat piss and I caught a glimpse of a small, dark-haired person huddled on the floor next to a corpse in a lab coat before _something_ hissed, sprang at me, knocked me off my feet, and tried to claw my face off through the mask.

“No! Bad kitty!” My assailant paused in mid-clawing, shook her head like she was trying to clear it, and just… looked at me. And I looked at her. She was a baby-faced white teenage girl - _really_ white, like an underfed vampire - with long dark brown hair hanging in her face, huge blue-gray eyes, a dimple in her chin, and big old fuck-off curved cat-claws that seemed to be reinforced with some kind of metal.

[ _Well, that’s one way of getting around licensing issues._ ]

I backed away into slightly fresher air, and the girl followed me, but didn’t try to attack me again. She took a deep breath and shook her head.

“Who. Are you?” she said. “What are you doing here?” 

“Deadpool. I’m here to rescue you, princess.” No reaction. “Tough room. Okay, I’m a mercenary. And if you are who I think you are, I’m a friend of your dad.” 

“Impossible,” she said. “I have no parents. I’m a science experiment.” She had a hint of a lisp, probably because of her fangs.

“Picky, picky. Okay, I know the guy who probably provided some of your human DNA. Now would you mind letting me know what the hell is going on, here?” The teenager glared at me and started crying silently.

“Sorry! I can see I’ve hit a nerve, here. I take it that lady in the lab coat was a friend of yours?” Little Miss Stabs-A-Lot nodded. Despite the tears, her expression was completely stoic. It was kinda eerie.

I moved closer to the body and got a proper look at it. The scent of that AXE and cat piss stuff was enough to make my eyes water, and the dead woman looked a little red around the eyes, but she didn’t seem to have been poisoned. There were scratches on the dead woman’s arms and scalp, but nothing that would drop a healthy adult. I lifted her head and felt carefully under her hair. Bingo! “You think you killed her?” You’d think that it wouldn’t be too hard to remember if you’d killed someone or not, but if this setup was what I thought it was - weaponized human science experiments get their heads messed with in all kinds of ways. The girl nodded numbly.

“If it’s any comfort to you, you probably didn’t,” I said. “She was shot.” I didn’t mention the guy with his throat torn out, because I didn’t want to upset her any further, and I also thought he was probably the one who shot Dead Labcoat Lady and therefore had it coming. “Now, let’s sit down somewhere that isn’t stinky and full of dead people so we can talk and figure out what the fuck is going on, and then we can get out of here. Okay?” The girl nodded, with some reluctance, and silently followed me down the hall. 

I pulled out a pack of tissues and gave them to her. “Here you go. Whatever the hell just happened, you’re safe now. I’m not going to hurt you, and even if I wanted to, you could take me.” The girl blew her nose, surprisingly silently. 

[ _Is that an assassin thing? Do Bucky and Black Widow know how to do it too?_ ]

“Oh, hey, chairs and no dead people!” We sat down in the empty office I’d found.

“Okay. First things first. I’m Deadpool. Aka the Merc with a Mouth, Red And Black Sonja, the Murderaculous Ladybug, La Zorra De Tequila, ‘Oh crap it’s HER again,’ and a lot of things that probably aren’t suitable for the ears of sheltered teenagers.”

“That is. A lot of names,” the girl said dubiously. Her nose was still a little red, but she had stopped crying.

“I’m very nicknameable. It’s all part of my charm. And you are?”

“WS-25, of Project Sphinx.”

More mythical monsters? Is this a coincidence or a HYDRA connection? 

[ _You probably shouldn’t read too much into this. Sphinxes are public domain._ ]

“Okay, that’s a little dystopian for life in the outside world. You got any other ideas?”

The girl paused thoughtfully for a moment and then said, “Rei. A character in stories the Professor used to tell us. She was a clone who flew around in a giant robot and saved the Earth from extraterrestrial invaders.”

[ _Pretty sure that wasn’t the point of Evangelion._ ]

“Okay, Rei. Good job! You have unlocked tier one self-determination.” Rei rolled her eyes and sighed like a completely normal non-weaponized all-human teenage girl. “But you said ‘us’. There’s more of you?” 

[ _A whole litter of murder kittens, how cute._ ]

“There’s four of us here,” she said. “I’m the oldest. There’s me, Twenty-Eight, Thirty-Two and Thirty-Three.”

That’s a lot of numbers unaccounted-for. “Do you know if there’s more of you in other facilities?”

Rei shook her head. “Unknown. But unlikely. The scientists never mentioned it.” Rei paused and looked troubled. Well, more troubled. She hadn’t been a barrel of laughs since I met her. “There was the prototype. WS-15. He was the only male, as far as I know. But he escaped custody years ago. Present location and viability unknown.”

“Rei, honey, if I’m right about who your unethical science experiment gene-dad is, you guys are pretty fucking hard to kill. Plus your big bro’s got the extra lives from being part-cat. He’ll be fine.” I got out my phone and found a picture of Bucky where his face wasn’t too obscured by hobo-beard. “Did your big brother look like this guy?”

Rei frowned at the picture. “Unclear. Facial resemblance is more ambiguous than scent.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter right now, anyway. Let’s go find your sisters.”

“Confirm.” Rei stood up, then sniffed at her t-shirt and wrinkled her nose. “I have to wash this off. And change, if possible. We need to find a supply closet and a restroom.” She looked at me and added, “You should clean up, too.”

“Y’know, I normally take exception to people making unsolicited remarks about my personal hygiene,” I said. But in this situation I decided to listen to the person with the genetically enhanced sense of smell. Although let me tell you, pulling on a spandex and leather suit after you’ve had to dry off under an air blower is not fun.

“What the hell was that stuff?” I asked Rei as I followed her deeper into the complex.

“A mixture of pheromones, inhalant drugs, and chemical irritants. With mercaptan added to facilitate scent tracking of the target. The techs called it murder juice.” 

We reached an airlock with a keypad. Rei punched in the password efficiently.

“Did they know you knew that?” I asked.

“Probably didn’t care,” Rei said. “More important to keep us from getting _out_.” 

“Fair enough, but if you get us both locked in some lab I’m gonna be pissed.”

“You must have studied exit strategies in mercenary school,” Rei said unsympathetically.

We got through the airlock and opened a second set of doors to a room that was - well, a lot less horrific than it could have been. No freaky _The Island Of Doctor Moreau_ lab equipment that I could see: just high ceilings, firm rubbery flooring, and lots of gymnastics apparatus. A pale, dark-haired girl a few years younger than Rei flung herself off the bars and hissed at me, while two little girls on a trampoline looked down at us with huge eyes.

“It’s okay, Twenty-Eight,” Rei said, with more warmth than I’d ever heard from her. “She’s with me.” Rei walked over to the other girl and gently headbutted her. Then the sisters started signing to each other in something that definitely wasn’t ASL, and the little girls hopped down to join them. Twenty-Eight seemed to be a throwback - she had cute pointy elf-ears with little tufts of fur on the tips, greenish-gold eyes, and mackerel tabby-striped hair - but Thirty-Two and Thirty-Three looked as human as Rei, although their eyes were bright Siamese blue instead of grayish like Bucky’s. 

While the girls had their family meeting, I went exploring. I found another gym, a locker room with showers, a dormitory with four beds, a schoolroom, and a playroom. It all looked surprisingly normal, except for two things: the impersonality of it all, and the lack of any links to the outside world. No computers or other personal electronics except for one ten year old desktop in the classroom. No library books. Not even any windows at eye level. And all the toys in the playroom looked like they’d been picked out by an occupational therapist who wanted to promote motor skills development. It was all kinda depressing.

I also found a locked door - just a normal lock, no fancy security measures - to a small office with a locked file cabinet. I grabbed all the files that looked relevant to Project Sphinx or the girls and the bag of almond M&Ms and half-finished mickey of whiskey in the bottom drawer.

When I got back to the gym, the girls had finished their conversation. The little ones looked a bit teary-eyed, but very composed for children their age. “We will go with you,” Rei said solemnly. “It’s not safe for us here now that the Professor is dead. But don’t try anything funny.”

“Sorry, sweetie, humor is kinda my thing,” I said. The two oldest girls glared at me. “Okay, okay. I promise, no sudden but inevitable betrayal, and I will do my best to act like a responsible adult. But we need to leave before sunrise if we want to get away without a lot of awkward questions. Go pack anything you want to take with you and meet me back here.”

The girls collected their stuff pretty quickly - they just didn’t have that many personal possessions to sort through - but they were all wearing tshirts, scrub pants, and bare feet. “Do you have any outside clothes? Jackets? _Shoes?_ ” God, I felt like such a _mom_. The two older girls darted off and came back wearing combat boots and tactical jackets that looked like smaller versions of Bucky’s gear without the cut-off left arm. “That’ll do for now, I guess. _Vámonos!_ ”

After some fiddling with the electronic security, we managed to get out of the girls’ quarters. Our biggest challenge leaving the lab itself was not getting lost in that damn office labyrinth again. We finally made it out the door, ducked around the corner to stay out of the night watchman’s line of sight, and sprinted to my car. “All right, everyone, share seatbelts if you have to, but _buckle in_. I don’t want us to get this far and then get pulled over for violating the seat belt laws. Put Thirty-Three in the middle. Speaking of, I can’t just keep calling you numbers all the time.” I found a baby names website on my phone and handed it to Twenty-Eight. “Pick something. You can change it later if you decide you don’t like it.” Everyone got buckled in and got their stuff stowed and we _finally_ drove off. I felt like Imperator Furiosa.

Our first stop was a 24-hour Walmart. “Okay, silly question,” I said to Rei. “But you girls can eat people food, right? You don’t need some special high-protein nutritionally balanced supersoldier chow?”

“We get special rations when we’re training or on missions,” Rei said. “Civilian food is too distracting and does not support optimum performance. But we can eat it.”

“When we do really well we get sashimi,” Twenty-Eight said, with more enthusiasm than I’d ever heard from her about anything.

[ _Isn’t that kind of a stereotype?_ ]

“Okay, then. Girls, don’t look.” I changed into my own civilian clothes. “You can look now.”

“What happened to your face? It looks all crumply,” Thirty-Two said.

“It’s a long story. An hour and forty-eight glorious R-rated minutes long. Short version is that I got really sick, and some scientists said they could make me better, and they sort of did, but how they made me better made me sick a different way, and that’s why my skin’s all messed up.” The girls listened solemnly.

Thirty-Three looked worried. “Are you going to die?” she asked in a tiny voice.

“No, I’m not that kind of sick. I’m actually really fu-fantastically hard to kill.”

I showed the girls how to stay out of security guards’ lines of sight - which Rei and Twenty-Eight already knew - left Rei in charge with a taser in case of trouble, and went shopping. I got hoodies for all the girls - you can’t go undercover without one - shoes for the two youngest, hair ties, juice boxes, canned tuna salad and crackers.

The girls fell on the snacks like a pack of ravenous wolves - okay, lion cubs - but after she finished her juice, Thirty-Three started wiggling uncomfortably. _Shit, why didn’t I think of this before we left?_

“All right, everyone. I’m declaring a pit stop. Everybody put on your shoes and hoodies, and prepare for your first taste of life in the outside world. Um, stay together, don’t do anything that will attract the attention of the security guards, don’t take anything out of the package until I’ve paid for it, and service animals are not for eating. Got that?” The girls nodded.

“It’s so _big_ ,” Thirty-Three said, as soon as her eyes got used to the fluorescent lights. 

“What _is_ all this stuff?” Thirty-Two asked.

“You’re going to have to be more specific, sweetie,” I said, as I herded the girls toward the restroom.

Then we headed to Girls’ Clothes, which was, fortunately, deserted. “Okay, everyone, pick out one outfit. If it doesn’t have a hood, get a hat. Rule number one of covert ops is never let people see all of your face if you can help it.” The two oldest girls picked out carefully inconspicuous ensembles that looked like something a SHIELD agent would have worn on a stakeout. Thirty-Two went crazy with pink and purple leopard print, and Thirty-Three’s outfit included a tutu and a frog hat.

“You can’t wear that,” Rei said, looking pained. “It’s too flashy. People will _notice_ you!”

“We’re not trying to be invisible, we’re trying not to be recognized,” I said. “It works just as well for us if people remember that Cyndi Lauper explosion but not her face.”

“Okay,” Rei said dubiously.

“And Twenty-Eight, get a different jacket. You’re not a thirty-five year old businesswoman.” 

Along with the clothes, we got a booster seat for Thirty-Three (because the last thing you want when you’re pulling a Furiosa is to get pulled over for violating the seat belt laws), some coloring books and crayons, and a package of smoked salmon. The clerk didn’t bat an eye. Probably anyone who works late-night retail has seen a lot of weirder shit.

I felt able to relax a little once we were over the county line, but I turned on the radio in case we showed up on the news or in an Amber Alert, and kept driving. “You girls picked out names yet?” I asked.

“I still want to be Rei,” said Rei.

“Triela,” said Twenty-Eight. 

Was the professor an otaku or something? It would make sense. Who else hears “we need you to create the ultimate human weapon” and thinks “catgirls”?

“I wanna be Zamia!” said Thirty-Two.

“Elsa!” said Thirty-Three, which proved that either they weren’t as isolated from outside pop culture as I’d thought, or that five year old girls have a telepathic hive mind.

We drove all the way to Olympia without incident. It was getting close to sunrise and the girls were getting bored. They weren’t the only ones. “Okay, it looks like nobody’s chasing us. You girls want to stop for breakfast?”

“Yes!”

I found a Shari’s, and while the girls were boggling at the variety of food, I tried to think of what to do next. Keeping them myself was out of the question. Nessa and I just didn’t have the _space_ , if nothing else. The Institute would take them in, I knew, but considering the mortality rates of X-Kids in other continuities, that felt pretty irresponsible. If they were Bucky’s experimental chimera-children, he’d probably want to know about them - hell, I’d want to know if I had secret experimental cat-children. But it seemed kind of insensitive to just text a guy and ask “Hey bro, did HYDRA ever make you have sex with a cat lady?” And I didn’t even know for sure if they were Bucky’s kids. There are a lot of dark-haired light-eyed white guys with defined jawlines out there. Maybe someone got the idea to cross cats with _American Horror Story_ actors.

I took a picture of the girls with my phone and sent it to Bucky with the message “ _Found in a lab in Wa. Look familiar?_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The girls' names are all media references: Rei and Triela are both Tykebomb/Child Soldier characters from anime, Zamia is a Bedouin werelioness from the novel "Throne of the Crescent Moon," and Elsa is, of course, from "Frozen."  
> "La Zorra De Tequila": a reference to 616-Deadpool's Japanese wrestling alias, which translated to something like "The Wolf of Rice Wine." But this Deadpool is more into tequila and lucha libre, and more of a fox than a wolf.


	2. Chapter 2

Bucky Barnes was not having a pleasant morning. He wouldn’t call it a _bad_ one - the fact that he was lucid and capable of making himself leave his room put the day in the “could be worse” category by Bucky’s standards - but he still felt a little ill-used about it.

Wanda had deactivated the last of Bucky’s leftover HYDRA conditioning yesterday. He was now, officially, no more of a danger to himself and others than any other biochemically enhanced combat veteran with compound-complex PTSD and a metal arm. Steve had been over the moon about it. Bucky was… relieved, although sheer mental exhaustion from Wanda rummaging in his head had muted the edges of the sensation. But he had hoped, a little, that getting properly de-HYDRA-fied would mark some kind of turnaround in his life.

But here he was, first day fully in charge of his own mind in over seventy years, and his nerves were like a ball of rubber bands someone was trying to separate through brute force. Bucky’d had worse mornings - hell, he’d had worse mornings that _didn’t involve HYDRA_ \- but some dumb childish part of him wanted to curl up and cry about it.

A little fluffy dog trotted across the floor of the kitchenette and pawed at Bucky’s ankle. Bucky smiled wearily. Nothing like a bossy little furball to stop you feeling sorry for yourself. “All right, Punk,” Bucky said. “I know. Breakfast time.” Bucky gave Punk his breakfast, and then made himself a cup of high-protein hot chocolate because real food was not going to happen that morning.

Bucky made it out of doors to take Punk to do his business, but his nerves would not stop screaming at him about how the trees were all full of enemy snipers. Bucky took Punk on a short walk to one of the warehouses and back to show his brain who was boss, and then spent the rest of Punk’s morning romp in one of the facility’s gyms.

After half an hour throwing tiny frisbees, Bucky felt more like a functioning human being and less like a bundle of over-stretched nerves in a people suit. He only flinched a little when his phone’s text alert went off. It was Miss Pool. She’d sent a picture with a cryptic message, which wasn’t unusual for her, but the picture was of four young dark-haired girls sitting around a table at a diner. Was he supposed to know these kids? Bucky took a closer, second look and noticed that the smallest girl looked a lot like his memories of his youngest sister at that age. And the oldest looked like Bucky. Not Bucky as he was now, but the fresh-faced kid from 1942. “What the hell?” Punk looked up at him inquisitively. “Not you, Punk. You’re fine.”

Bucky texted back “ _They do. What the hell is going on?_ ”

“ _Long story. Tty when more privacy. Hope you like cats_ ”

Cats beat squid, Bucky supposed, but that was still not terribly reassuring. Wanda Wilson was a great friend in a lot of ways, but sometimes Bucky honestly could not tell whether she was being aggravating as part of her general whimsical and free-spirited nature or doing it on purpose to annoy people.

And speaking of small terrible women, as if at a signal, Natasha walked in while Bucky was still staring at his phone. “Hey, comrade,” she said. “Hunting for Pokemon?”

“Pretty sure if I can’t handle something, a yellow cartoon mouse critter wouldn’t be any help,” Bucky said. “So no.”

“Is it anything the Avengers need to know about?” Natasha asked.

“You’re a lot more subtle when you’re digging into Steve’s business,” Bucky said.

“Well, you’re a lot more suspicious than Steve is,” Natasha said matter-of-factly. “If you noticed I was trying to pull something on you but you didn’t know what or why, your inner paranoiac would try to convince you that I was poisoning your cocoa mix.”

“That’s fair. And I don’t know if this will turn out to be an Avengers problem. That depends on what else the people responsible have been up to. I think. I don’t have any details yet.”

“So what do you know?” Natasha asked.

If Natasha really wanted to know, she could find out with her spy powers anyway, so Bucky figured he might as well tell her. “Just this,” Bucky said, showing her the picture of the girls, “And something about cats.”

“Breeding programs,” Natasha said darkly.

“How’d they manage that?” Bucky asked.

“Well, you see, Bucky, when two test subjects love each other very much… or more likely, some high-tech version of a turkey baster.”

_Dammit, Natasha!_ “Not that! I meant that Doctor Cho said the serum changed my DNA too much. Steve’s too. I couldn’t have kids with a normal person if I wanted to. So where the hell did these girls come from?”

“Maybe you should talk to Helen about this,” Natasha said.

“I wouldn’t want to bother her,” said Bucky. “I don’t even have any solid information.”

“C’mon,” said Natasha. “None of the Avengers have been hurt lately and we haven’t fought any weird monsters or bioweapons. I bet she’s bored. And nerds love mysteries.”

“ _Fine_ ,” Bucky said, as chillingly as he could. Natasha smiled at him impishly.

Bucky screwed his courage to the sticking place and walked off toward Doctor Cho’s lab, Punk at his heels. He had to make a slight detour to the juice bar because his phone’s “eat something you idiot” alert went off when he was halfway there, but losing a little momentum was worth not having to face the medical wing with low blood sugar.

Doctor Cho was in her office, not any of the proper laboratories, which was a slight relief. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything, ma’am,” Bucky said.

“Just Sudoku,” Doctor Cho said. “Is anything the matter, Bucky?”

“No, I just had some science questions,” Bucky said. Doctor Cho looked intrigued. “Could someone create a girl clone of a guy, if they wanted?”

“Certainly, if one of them were transgender,” the doctor said. “Otherwise you’d have to make some modifications, but if you had the facilities to create healthy human clones in the first place, it could probably be done. The simplest way would be to tweak the androgen receptor genes, if you didn’t care about the clone being able to have kids. Or you could duplicate the X chromosome.” She paused for a moment and asked “Is this a purely theoretical question, or not?”

“It’s not.” Bucky showed her the picture of the girls on his phone. “I just found out this morning. What do you think?”

“I can’t come to any conclusions without seeing them in person and doing a cheek swab,” Doctor Cho said carefully. “But I must say, that is a _remarkable_ family resemblance.”

“The person who sent me the picture said something about cats,” Bucky said. “Anything to that, or was she just playing around?”

“I _hope_ she was joking,” Doctor Cho said. The doctor facepalmed and continued “ _Chimeras_. Bloody hell.”

“Is something wrong?” Bucky asked.

“Other than high-level experimental biology being filled with ethically challenged mad scientists, no,” Doctor Cho said.

“I already knew about _that_ ,” said Bucky.

“You know that before Steve was thawed out, a lot of countries and organizations were trying to make their own super soldiers?”

“I was aware,” Bucky said. “I’ve met some of them.”

“Most people were working on variations of Erskine’s serum,” Doctor Cho continued, “But a few groups decided that trying to recreate Captain America after fifty years of unsuccessful attempts was chasing the philosopher’s stone and switched their focus to genetic engineering. Some of it was basic eugenics ‘normal people but better’ stuff - there was a scandal involving a doctor at the Olympics trafficking in DNA samples from championship athletes - but a lot of it involved trying to graft animal powers onto humans. Chimeras.”

“I think some of those people worked for HYDRA,” Bucky said. “I remember scientists who got really offended when Pierce told them that he didn’t care if it ‘fit the theme,’ nobody was going to be injecting the Asset with cuttlefish camouflage DNA.” Bucky paused and added “You said _tried_. Did any of these experiments ever work?”

“If any of the chimera experiments involving gene therapy on adults ever worked, everyone involved has been very quiet and discreet about it. Which is not a natural way for mad scientists and their creations to behave. There are well-supported rumors that the Soviets finally managed to create a viable bioengineered gorilla hybrid in the 1980s, but the USSR broke up before any of the kids would have been old enough to join the army and nobody knows for sure what happened to them.”

This was all very intriguing to Bucky’s inner science nerd, but he was ready to get to the point already. “So, if human plus gorilla can work,” Bucky said, “what about human plus cat?”

“You couldn’t make a true crossbreed, like a mule or a liger,” Dr. Cho said, “Not nearly closely related enough. But people have successfully introduced jellyfish genes into all kinds of creatures, including mammals, so bits and pieces of cat DNA on a human base are certainly within the realm of possibility.”

“But _why_ would they do that?” Bucky asked, not really expecting a sensible answer. “I understand wanting more Winter Soldiers. But why not just clone me then? Why bother with all the rest of this stuff, unless they wanted Winter Soldiers who could also do triple duty as Black Widows and ratters in missile silos?”

“If you find out, please let me know,” said the doctor. “Now I’m intrigued.”

* * *

 

While the girls devoured their breakfasts - Rei and Triela were bottomless pits even for active growing teenagers, which made me wonder if they had some kind of enhanced metabolisms on top of the cat powers - I took a discreet look at the files. The first ten pages or so were from the late eighties. They were so full of scientific jargon that I understood about one word in ten, but they did have a picture of Project Sphinx’s genetic progenitor - well, the human one - and yep, that was Bucky. Pasty, hollow-eyed, and glaring at the camera with the combination of confusion, exhaustion, and lowkey murderous rage that most people only achieve the morning after a really hardcore bender, but definitely him. The file also mentioned DNA from lynxes, servals, and domestic shorthairs. No mention of HYDRA. Who the hell were these assholes working for? And where did they get the DNA samples, anyway? Wasn’t Bucky with the Soviets at that point?

Then a bunch of stuff about IVF and grainy pictures of zygotes and blastocysts. I didn’t understand the technical language, but the gist of it seems to have been that there were a bunch of false starts before the project even got an embryo to the point where it had recognizable body parts. That’d explain all the gaps between the ID numbers.

Finally, the girls’ big brother was born, and there was a massive drop in the level of technobabble. I skimmed through a bunch of routine stuff about education, medical examinations, exercise programs, and combat training, until I hit the psych writeup from when he was ten. It was all written in very precise, detached, formal language, but the message of “oh crap, we have a human unneutered tomcat on our hands and in a few years he’s going to be an _asshole_ ” came through loud and clear. Maybe this was why the scientists made the rest of Project Sphinx all girls. Because teenage girls are always _so_ manageable and undemanding. This must be the reason mad scientists go to all that extra trouble to create clones who are born as adults.

[ _And “who is the real Peter Parker?” drama doesn’t work when one of them is a toddler._ ]

That too. You can’t underestimate mad scientists’ love for drama.

I reached the late nineties, and flipped forward to look for specific information about the girls, when I noticed that everyone had finished their food, and Elsa was getting antsy. I looked around. Still no suspicious observers. “Anyone want dessert?” I asked. If we had to lay low for a while, there were worse places than a diner on the outskirts of Olympia.

“You can’t have dessert with breakfast!” Zamia said, with outraged confusion.

“Oh yes you can,” I replied. “Check the menu. Do the pies have time restrictions?”

“But dessert goes with _dinner_.” Triela kicked her sister under the table in the universal code for “the adults are letting us get away with something here, _do not_ screw this up.”

“If you don’t want pie, I’m not going to force you to eat any,” I said. “Now, does anyone _else_ want dessert?” Everyone did, and once she resigned herself to the fact that all the certainties of her young life had been overturned, Zamia asked for a piece of creamy caramel pecan crunch.

Whether or not real cats can taste sweetness - most scientists say they can’t, but Nessa once had a cat who liked Timbits so I’m not sure I believe them - these little kittens certainly could. While the girls were chasing the last crumbs around their plates or licking the tail end of lemon meringue out from between the tines of their forks, I got my phone out and looked for family activities in Olympia. It was a weekday, and school was in session, so I needed to find something for the girls to do that wouldn’t make them look like young truants or have too many suspicious security people.

Okay, there was the WET Science Center. Schools took field trips to museums and places like that, kids there on a weekday morning wouldn’t stand out. I didn’t think it sounded that exciting, but maybe “municipal wastewater treatment and you” would be interesting to people who’d lived their whole lives in a converted warehouse and never got any outings at all. And at least it was free. “Okay, girls,” I said. “We’re going on a field trip.” I sent a text to Bucky, left a generous tip for the server as pre-emptive hush money, and went to pay the bill.

* * *

 

Bucky went back to his rooms after talking to Doctor Cho, and tried to settle his nerves. He made himself another mug of cocoa and tried to read, but his brain was buzzing too hard. So he settled down with his laptop and a playlist of baby animal videos, while Punk snuggled with him and kept trying to steal his cocoa, despite the fact that it was clearly too hot for a dog to drink comfortably, never mind the chocolate issue.

And speaking of kittens, Bucky got another text from Wanda Wilson: _Kids are def yours. And def part cat. In Olympia. Know any good hideouts in PNW?_

Well, damn.

Bucky heard a distinctive knock on the door - the sound of a very large, strong person trying to be gentle and unobtrusive. “Come in, Steve,” he said. Bucky heard the door open, and looked over to see Steve carrying a tray of soup and sandwiches one-handed and looking concerned.

“I brought you some lunch, Buck,” Steve said. “Natasha said you probably didn’t feel like dealing with everyone out there right now.”

“She was right,” Bucky said. “Thanks, Steve.” Steve set the food down and looked awkward. “You can stay, if you want to,” Bucky said. “I’m just feeling kind of on edge today, I don’t want to be a hermit. And there’s something I need to tell you, anyway.”

“What’s that, Buck?” Steve asked.

“I’m a father.”

“How’d that happen?” Steve blushed and made his “geez, I’m an idiot” face. “I meant - you never told me about any girls, Buck. Not since the war, at least. Except for Miss Pool, and I didn’t think you two were like _that_.”

“Morally dubious science,” Bucky said. “I don’t know the details, but HYDRA would have had plenty of opportunity to take genetic samples.”

“Oh,” Steve said. “Are the kids all right, at least? Do we have to go rescue anyone?”

“Someone’s already rescued them,” Bucky said. “They should be safe now, but I don’t think it’s a stable situation.”

“They can stay here,” Steve said. “We have plenty of room.”

“Steve, you don’t even know how many kids I have,” Bucky said. “What if they made an army?”

“Okay, Bucky, how many kids are there?”

“Four, if they’re all accounted for,” Bucky admitted.

“See, plenty of room!”

“Steve, I don’t think you understand,” Bucky said. “On a bad day I can barely take care of myself and the furball. How am I going to bring up four children by myself?”

“You won’t be doing it by yourself, Buck,” Steve said. “I’ve got your back. Always.”

“I’m holding you to that,” Bucky said.

“Any more big news?” Steve asked.

“Well, the kids are apparently part cat, because just trying to make little Winter Soldiers isn’t enough for some people.”

Steve frowned. “I’m trying to figure out how that would even work. Do you have any pictures?” Bucky showed Steve the photo of the girls on his phone. “Well, they got your looks.”

“Steve, why are you so cheerful about this?”

“Bucky, when I came out of the ice, I had no family left, and not much hope of ever getting any. It’s not easy to date when you have more in common with your dates’ grandparents and you keep getting called out at the last minute to fight terrorists, and adoption agencies aren’t big fans of bachelors who earn their living jumping out of planes with no parachute, even if they are war heroes. Then I got you back. And now you have four beautiful daughters. Sure, the circumstances are weird and kinda depressing, but most of the reasons we’re here together in 2016 and not in a nursing home with Peggy are weird and depressing.”

“All right, Steve,” Bucky said. “The soup’s getting cold. Why don’t you heat it up and we can watch _How It’s Made_?”

“That sounds wonderful,” Steve said.

“Y’know,” Steve said, as a segment about high-end sportscars wrapped up, “I think we should tell Tony about this.”

“We’ll have to tell everyone eventually. Why Stark specifically?”

“Because Tony _hates_ being left out of the loop and if he has to find out through Vision or Rhodey he’s going to be a real pill about it,” Steve said. “And we might need his help.”

“Okay,” Bucky said. He was not looking forward to this - Tony could be a lot to deal with - but Steve did have a point. And, well, better now than when he had four kids to deal with. Bucky got his phone and called Tony’s private number.

“Hello, Mr. Stark is not available right now,” said Stark’s computer-lady receptionist. “Please state your name, business, and contact information, and Mr. Stark will get back to you if and when he has the free time to do so if it’s interesting enough. Thank you.”

“Hi, FRIDAY. This is Bucky Barnes. Tell your boss I want to talk to him about a personal matter. There is experimental science involved, but not the kind involving machinery or explosions.”

“I’ll take this one, FRIDAY,” Bucky heard, and then Tony was on the line. “Terminator! What’s up? Is your arm making funny noises again?”

Bucky closed his eyes and silently counted to five. “My arm is fine, Stark.” Bucky took a deep breath and tried to think of a good way to phrase what he was about to say. “Tony, how’d you like to be an eccentric rich uncle?”

“Sounds awesome!” Tony said. “I can spoil the kids on major holidays and it won’t screw them up for life if I’m an irresponsible absentee workaholic the other 360 days of the year. Who are my lucky niblings? Did Barton decide he was okay having more overlap between his Avengering and his family life after all?”

“Not Barton’s kids. Mine. Well, sort of. Someone’s secret lab got ahold of my genetic material and made a bunch of partial clones or something. I don’t know all the scientific details. But anyway, a friend of mine found them and broke them out of the lab, and unless they have another parent who isn’t a member of an evil science conspiracy lurking around somewhere, they’re going to be staying here with me and the Avengers.”

“Congratulations! I hope you and your little science experiments are very happy and that none of them become angry shirtless British terrorists. Now where do I come in? I know you don’t call me because you love the sound of my voice.”

“You got me there, Tony,” Bucky said. “The girls are on the West Coast, which is a little out of our way even if the traffic’s good. We were kinda hoping you’d help arrange transportation.”


	3. Chapter 3

Despite the stereotypes about cats and water, the girls seemed to like the WET Science Center okay. I guess anything new is interesting when you’ve spent most of your life practicing gymnastics in a warehouse. Rei and Triela were keeping an eye on the little girls. I watched the crowd.

It was mostly families and school groups. Very few unaccompanied adults. The museum staff and volunteers were probably not agents, unless there was some serious _Minority Report_ shit going on. But I kept an eye out for people in volunteer aprons who didn’t seem to have anything to do, or “parents” hanging out on the periphery of field-trip groups who never interacted with any of the kids or teachers.

And _this_ is why I didn’t go into intelligence work. Too damn much watching and waiting. Give me a good throwdown with a ninja clan and a giant cyborg gorilla any day.

Whole thing had me so tense I almost jumped when my phone beeped, but it was just Bucky. _Found possible safe house in lakewood. Stark’s ai will send directions._

[ _So now we’re bringing Stark into this? Fuck, I hope this doesn’t turn into another damn “the editorial team has run out of ideas so let’s make our heroes all fight each other” crossover._ ]

“Shut up,” I told my brain. “How often do you get to crash at a billionaire’s house long enough to enjoy it? Usually you have to beat it before the cops show up! This is an _opportunity_ , here.” Fortunately, we were next to one of the noisier exhibits, and nobody seemed to overhear me.

By the time I got the second text from an unfamiliar number, the girls had seen all the exhibits, although Elsa had to be dragged away from the model sewage treatment center. It turned out that the safe house Bucky had mentioned was in fucking _Lakewood_ , aka the Labyrinth of Shuma-Gorath. Stark’s AI also wanted pictures of everyone, to make sure the security system let in the right people.

“Isn’t taking pictures of all the girls overkill?” I asked. “I mean, they are clones. Wouldn’t just taking a picture of one and digitally aging or de-aging it be enough?” But the computer was not convinced.

I took the girls out for a group photo by the fountain. They obediently lined up and held still to have their picture taken, with no bunny ears, crossed eyes, pufferfish faces, rude gestures, or any other nonsense kids get up to in front of a camera. It was kinda eerie, really. Then I had to take my shades off and put my hood down to send the AI a picture of myself. Yay.

[ _Since when do you care what some rich asshole’s computer thinks about how you look?_ ]

“Maybe this is hard for you to understand as a disembodied internal monolog, but body image issues aren’t rational, okay?” The girls all looked at me curiously, and then the younger ones looked to Rei, who shook her head and shrugged.

“Okay, girls. First: does anyone need to pee?” They all shook their heads. “Everybody got your stuff?” A chorus of nods. “Okay, we’re going on a road trip. I’ll tell you the rest in the car.”

“Where are we going?” Triela asked, after everyone was buckled in.

“Lakewood.”

“What’s that?” asked Zamia.

“It’s not a _what_ , it’s a _where_ ,” Triela explained condescendingly.

“Are we going on the base?” asked Rei.

“Hell no. We are going to stay far, far away from the military, the police, and anywhere that checks for ID. A friend of your dad is going to let us hide out at his house. Assuming we can find it.”

“I can navigate if you don’t know how,” Rei volunteered. “I am good with maps.”

“Thanks, kiddo, but that’s not the issue,” I said, and we drove off.

Elsa was asleep before we reached the county line, and the other girls were definitely starting to droop. Even I felt the world go a little fuzzier around the edges as the adrenaline and diner coffee wore off. “Not now, dammit,” I told myself. “You can sleep at Iron Man’s. Sprawl all over his huge decadent high-tech rich guy bed.” But my brain was not convinced, so I turned up the music and risked a couple of rest-stop coffees.

[ _Really?_ ]

“I’m running low on American cash after buying all that stuff for the girls, and cards can be tracked.”

[ _You’re taking your life in your hands._ ]

“You got any better ideas?”

Fortunately, when we got to Lakewood, my brain was still on its second wind, and I was able to avoid attracting the attention of the ever helpful and vigilant Lakewood PD. Then it was just a matter of letting a weirdly cheerful computer voice talk me through a series of increasingly inaccessible streets - from generic upper-middle-class white Stepford suburbia with lots of rhododendrons, to McMansion developments, to real mansions on huge lots along a weirdly winding street. I have a pretty good sense of direction, but trying to orient myself by looking outside and remembering where I’d been just made my head hurt and made me think of words like “eldritch.” I HATE driving in Lakewood!

Chez Stark was surprisingly boring-looking for something that belonged to Mr. Red And Gold Power Armor, but that made sense if the house was a semi-secret hideout. I drove up to the gatehouse and Marvin the Paranoid Android’s perkier sister scanned us - without incident, despite the fact that we were surrounded by large, dense shrubbery that any self-respecting ninja would have creamed themselves over the opportunity to hide in - and let us in.

The inside of Stark’s Cascadian crash-pad was not _quite_ the _Jupiter Ascending_ -meets-The Sharper Image high-tech wonderland I’d been hoping for, but the girls were impressed. Elsa immediately forgot how sleepy she was and ran off to explore with her sisters. I wasn’t as energized, because I am not five years old anymore, but I definitely saw the appeal of snooping around a little before I collapsed in a comatose heap on Tony Stark’s fancy bed.

“Are you looking for the guestrooms?” the robot voice said cheerfully. Now, I am no stranger to disembodied running commentary, as y’all know, but it’s different when the kibitzer is spying on you when you’re trying to commit a little innocent violation of privacy. But a nap did sound good.

“Sure, let’s go with that.” A little roomba critter rolled out of a niche in the hallway wall, beeped at me, and trundled off. “You couldn’t have just shown me a map or something?” I asked. I knew Stark did holograms.

“I could have,” the AI said, “But the little guys like to be helpful.”

I couldn’t argue with that, so I followed the robot through the halls and stopped at a door that opened onto what looked like a luxury hotel room from a shiny Art Deco scifi universe. _Not bad_. I took off my boots, bounced on the bed a few times, and then told the AI, “Look, Friend Computer, could you try to keep the kids from killing each other or burning the place down until I wake up?”

“Certainly, Ms. Wilson,” the AI said.

[ _Wait a minute. You never told her your real name._ ] But I guess running facial recognition is no problem for a Turing-capable computer.

“Great. And wake me up when the Avengers arrive,” I added, before I collapsed into an ungraceful heap on Stark’s very fine guest bed. The last thing I was aware of was the AI turning out the lights.

* * *

 

You can’t just adopt a bunch of kids and not tell one of your best pals from this century, especially not when he and the kids are going to be living under the same roof. Sam was working at the raptor rescue that day, so Steve called him up before he and Bucky left for the west coast.

“Hey, man,” Sam said. “What’s up? We being invaded? Did Ant-Man try to break in again?”

“Nothing that exciting,” Steve said. Over the phone, he heard outraged hooting and muffled cursing. “Is everything all right over there?”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “We just got a new bird in for rehab, and he is not happy. Great horned owl with an eye injury. I’m thinking of calling him Nick.”

“I can see it,” Steve said.

“So did you call just to chat, or do you have something to tell me?” Sam asked.

Steve took a deep breath. “I’m going to be a dad, Sam!”

There was a meaningful pause on the other end of the line. “You and Sharon?” Sam asked hesitantly.

“No! Shoot, that came out wrong! I meant I’m adopting! We’re adopting!”

“Okay,” Sam said. “Now, I know that legal adoption calls for a ton of paperwork even if you are a patriotic war hero. And I’d know if you were dealing with that because I’m the guy you always ask for help when you have to deal with 21st century bureaucracy. Did SHIELD secretly clone you and Nick Fury just dropped by to tell you about it? That seems like the kind of thing they’d do.”

“You’re about half right. It wasn’t SHIELD, and they cloned Bucky, not me, and he heard about it from Miss Pool, his mercenary friend.”

“So we’re going to have an army of miniature Winter Soldiers running around?”

“Only four, Sam.”

Sam sighed with relief. “Four’s manageable. Anything else you need to tell me?”

“Only that Bucky and I are flying out to pick them up this afternoon. We should be back for dinner.”

“Okay. Any idea what the kids would like?”

“I don’t know,” Steve said. “Maybe fish? Buck says they’re part cat.”

“This is gonna be interesting,” Sam said. “Just don’t let them use me for ambush practice. Natasha’s bad enough.” Steve heard more staticky bird and human squabbling in the background. “I gotta go, Steve,” Sam said. “Someone needs to remind the corvids to make better life choices.”

“Feel free to tell me all about it tonight,” said Steve. “Goodbye, Sam.”

“‘Bye.”


End file.
